(1) Sat May 21 2005 17:34Serbia:
I have finished reading The Luck of Thirteen by Mr. and Mrs. Jan Gordon, a memoir published in 1916 of their adventures as volunteers with the British Red Cross in Serbia. Like most of the books Rachel is using for her research, this one is fascinating. Plus, it's so well-written and fast moving, it's a real page turner.

One has to admire these plucky Brits who spent the term of World War I trying to be helpful on the Eastern Front. Seldom do we learn anything about the Eastern Front because our history textbooks are so Eurocentric, and they focus on France and Germany. I had no idea before Rachel started this research.

I don't think I would hold up as well as these folks, given the same conditions. They went cheerfully bumping all over the Balkans in oxcarts, eating terrible, scarce food and sleeping in all kinds of horrible conditions. Lice. Typhus. Cold. Stench. I'm afraid I like my creature comforts, and I don't want to sleep in wet clothing in a tent in a howling blizard. I don't mind hard work--and these folks who ran the hospitals taking care of the sick and wounded REALLY worked hard-- but I don't do so well with misery. My hat is off to these people who did what I couldn't have.